


Diversionary Tactics

by fakeplasticlily



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, and certain friends who double as A+ enablers, blame this on my dirty dirty mind, semi-public blowjobs, well actually completely public if you want to get technical about it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-27
Updated: 2013-02-27
Packaged: 2017-12-03 19:39:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/701909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fakeplasticlily/pseuds/fakeplasticlily
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Enjolras tries to say things, Grantaire's a good boy who doesn't speak with his mouth full, and Joly is quite convinced they're all going to die.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Diversionary Tactics

**Author's Note:**

> for [chasing-givenchy](http://archiveofourown.org/users/chasing_givenchy/pseuds/chasing_givenchy), who read this through and made sure i ever finished writing this at all. ily <3

It hasn't been long since Louison the little scullery-maid lit the candles at the back room of the Café Musain, but Joly has already counted seven new symptoms to add to his ever-growing collection pointing to certain tuberculosis since the rain that afternoon. At another end of the room, Bahorel is embarking on a description of his fourth encounter with his latest mistress last weekend, in rather lurid detail to Feuilly.

"Then she comes up to me," he tells his rapt one-man audience in an exaggerated stage whisper, eyes discreetly travelling over everyone in earshot to gauge the volume he ought to raise his voice to. "Her skirt raised to near about  _here_ —if you would believe it, and my cravat between her teeth—"

"She seems lovely," Jehan assures him over the top of his diary, when he catches the hopeful pair of eyes hovering over at his corner. Next to him, an unusually quiet Courfeyrac tugs at his shirtsleeve, and Jehan returns to the piece of poetry he's been reading out loud to him.

Amidst this general hum of lively conversation, one young man stares fixedly at a map tacked to the wall across the room. Blue eyes lit with a steady fire, he studies the shape of his beloved Patria under the old Republic.

The curve of the west coast where it embraces the Bay of Biscay reminds him of the graceful arch of Grantaire's lithe, sweaty back when he fucks him into the mattress.

Thirty seconds later, Enjolras discovers that his mouth has fallen wide open. He snaps it back shut.

"My friends," he calls out without thinking, consumed with vexation at the one direction his thoughts seem to turn to every time they are left to their own devices these days. As one, every conversation in the room comes to a halt, and every eye turns to him.

But as Achilles bore that perfidious heel, this Apollo bears a head that cannot get rid of a thought once it has taken root in it. If the revolution doesn't kill him, it's this that will lead him one day to a certain, painful and horribly embarrassing death.

As if in validation, the silence where Grantaire's drunken ramblings should be turns deafening.

So he has not come to the café today. It isn't surprising—quite the opposite, really, given that this was  _Grantaire_  you were talking about.

Well, then.

This is a perfectly understandable situation. Indeed, a favourable one too. Because Grantaire hasn't been around today, with his bottle and his unflagging cynicism and his damnably distracting blue eyes, pink mouth, and wild hair so perfect to pull at when—

Twenty pairs of eyes blink patiently at him.

Grantaire isn't around today, his thoughts begin again, hurrying to rationalise with himself before his friends grow suspicious. Where, then… where could he have gone? Café Voltaire, where the girls were pretty? The Barrière du Combat, where they were willing—?

Frustrated, Enjolras shakes his head violently. Joly's brows furrow in distress; could he be unwell?

Convinced by now of the utter futility of his endeavour, Enjolras changes tack. He squares his shoulders and fixes his eyes on the map again. (Eyes studiously averted from any suggestively traced coastlines.)

It takes him but a moment to clear his head, and at the end of it all he can see before him is Patria. His oldest love.

(Least likely to cause certain portions of his anatomy to react inappropriately at inopportune moments too.)

Resisting the urge to gloat at the ease of his mastery over sordid distraction, he runs his gaze calmly around the room over each of his friends in turn.

"The rabblement is astir," he says in a low voice at last, fists clenching upon the table.

And with this the spell he holds over his audience is cast already, no matter how many times they've been subjected to his speeches before.

"Take a walk down Les Halles, if you will," he says, voice taking on that low, gritty tone that could enthrall Mme de T—'s salon into rebellion at a moment of weakness. "Between the haggling ladies, the thieving gamin and the watchful eyes of the police, it is hard to imagine anything really amiss, is it not? But exist it does, in late-night meetings in shadowy alleyways, and hushed conversation over a game of dominoes at corner tables, and it grows every day.

"They will not speak a word to strangers yet—and wisely so, because they know not our strength in numbers. Gentlemen, this is where we make an entrance! This, my friends, is where we—"

Two things happen together at this point: firstly, Enjolras becomes aware of a distinct presence upon his left thigh. And second, he drags the last syllable of his speech into what ends up as a rather prolonged and high-pitched squeak.

"Are you quite all right, Enjolras?" inquires Joly urgently, leaning forward in his chair, but Enjolras has more pressing things on his mind than appeasing his friend's concern.

Such as the object on his thigh. Shaped like a hand—rough and long-fingered and clever like he knows so well, knows so well that he can feel his skin burning up at the memory of them digging into his arms and twining in his hair and curling around his—

_Grantaire_.

It's Grantaire. With his hand on his thigh. Under the table.

Enjolras doesn't scream out like a schoolgirl, but it's a close thing. He takes a deep breath instead.

Then, ever so cautiously, he leans back a tiny amount and angles his eyes under the table. Wild, dark hair greets him from the region between his thighs.

He quickly looks up again, closes his eyes and waits.

But Grantaire's hand doesn't move, and eight seconds later when Enjolras's body is well on its treacherous way to  _reacting_  to it, he realises he will have to take matters into his own hands.

So he gives his thigh a little experimental shake. It doesn't work, so he ups the ante.

Every shake and squirm more violent than the last, he's in danger of upending the table altogether when he stops to think for a moment.

Bless the hands that fashioned this table, and thought to wall off three sides of the space under it; the way it is now, Grantaire is well hidden in the alcove thus formed. But he cannot be revealed to the room in this situation, because who knows what he might say? He's probably drunk—with Grantaire, this is an assumption you could safely make at any time of the day—and his face is inches from Enjolras's crotch.

Now not to sound arrogant, but that's an area sure to have left  _quite_  an impression upon him, from prior experience of the hands-on variety. Faced with it at such close quarters now, he may be excused for starting to babble about it to the room at large, inebriated as he must be.

So Enjolras tightens the corners of his mouth, squeezes his eyes shut for a moment and carefully closes his mind from everything to do with the irksome presence at his feet.

"Forgive me," he says, "I was distracted… What was I—?"

"Our entrance," supplies Courfeyrac from his and Jehan's corner, for the first time all day displaying an interest in something besides Jehan's hands and Jehan's hair and Jehan's voice reading softly out to him. "Our grand entrance on the scene of these whispers of revolution." There is an odd glint in his eyes as he watches Enjolras.

"Indeed," answers Enjolras gravely, inclining his head towards him. "And we, friends of the AB—"

Grantaire's hand has started to slide over Enjolras's trousers, with a very definite goal in mind.

"C!" Gavroche bursts out proudly from the corner he's been hiding in. With a huff of exasperation, Courfeyrac springs to his feet and hauls him out by the ear.

At his seat by the window, Marius's eyes have misted over at the mention of the first letter of his beloved's name.

Meanwhile, Enjolras ponders a question of an existential nature: what now?

They're in the middle of a meeting at the Musain, and Grantaire's hand is crawling up his thigh. But then— _Grantaire's hand is crawling up his thigh_ , his breath soft puffs racing across his skin and up his spine and down as the blood rushing to his cock, and Enjolras can be forgiven for a little cloudy judgment on his part.

When Courfeyrac pauses in the midst of chiding the intrepid young trespasser, Grantaire's stubble is rubbing against his thighs and burning his very brains out, and this has gone far beyond acceptable. Enjolras snakes a hand under the table, grips Grantaire's hair and holds his head back.

"Friends of the ABC," he begins anew through gritted teeth, and Courfeyrac turns his keen gaze towards him. "We sha—oh!"

Head craned sideways, Grantaire flicks his tongue against the inside of his thigh, dipping and swirling and tracing nonsensical patterns on the fabric, and Enjolras's fingers freeze in place. Grip slackened, Grantaire surges forward and pins his wrists down on his chair on either side, and starts to lap at his crotch.

Enjolras bites down on his lip; hard.

"Oh dear," says Joly, "You're rather flushed." Face the picture of worry, he mentally runs over all the possible medical conditions that might be at the root of it.

"Sweaty, too," Courfeyrac drawls amusedly, leaning against a pillar as he studies him.

"It's just a bit—ah…" Enjolras makes the terrible mistake of glancing downwards. Grantaire's teeth are at work on the fastenings of his trousers, and his eyes are locked on Enjolras's face. When Enjolras's eyes meet his, his lips curve in a roguish grin.

A flash of a grimace crosses Courfeyrac's face, and he catches hold of Gavroche's long-suffering ear again.

"What's the hurry, guv?" yelps the boy, as he's dragged towards the stairs.

"The fun part's over; as dearly as I love my friends, there are some things that I'd really rather never see," Courfeyrac mutters cryptically, before raising his voice to say, "I'd better see this one out, then. Don't wait for me, I'll be hearing about everything you lot decide soon enough!" And with a wink at Jehan, he sets off down the stairs, Gavroche in tow.

At this point, Grantaire blows gently over Enjolras's half-exposed cock, and a strangled noise escapes the back of his throat.

"Do you need air? Shall I open the window behind you?" enquires Combeferre sharply, half-rising from his seat.

The panic of someone coming around the table and into view of the goings-on under it pierces Enjolras's daze to an extent, and he vigorously shakes his head. "No, no!" he says with a brave effort at nonchalance, and Combeferre resumes his seat, a definite crease marring his forehead now.

"As I was saying," Enjolras doggedly continues, trying and failing to ignore the way Grantaire has clasped both of his wrists in one hand, and with the other is attempting to pull his trousers down and palm him roughly through his pants at the same time. This is mad; he cannot seriously be in a room full of his friends, harder than he's ever been before in his life; any moment now he will wake up

(with Grantaire smiling sleepily at him by his side, wild hair disappearing under the covers in a moment only to surface between his thighs)

( _for God's sake, Enjolras_ )

and it will all have been a ghastly dream.

Surely, the cons of kicking Grantaire out and even risking a drunken extolment of Enjolras's nether regions—in slurred speech that no one really ever pays heed to either way—pale in comparison now to the pros: getting his mouth away from his cock in public, for starters. But there is a tiny, perverse part of Enjolras that revels in the anticipation, sparking arousal down his spine and swelling the flesh under Grantaire's persistent hand till he can hardly bear it.

"As I was saying!" he says in near-desperation. "Rallying the people is a task that cannot suffer delay, for these insubstantial flickers of mutiny may yet die out without a trace, meaninglessly, if we do not provide the kindling to sustain it."

Suddenly,  _miraculously_ , Grantaire seems to have ceased his activities and withdrawn. Scarcely daring to believe it, Enjolras offers up a silent prayer in thanks and presses on with his speech.

"So, then, we shall be needing all the educated minds we can gather," he says, "To speak to the people, and let them know they are not alone. Decide upon a place to meet, fitting for such an addre—"

He freezes. Grantaire's fingers have slipped underneath Enjolras's shirt. Before he can even imagine what his intentions might be, they start to run relentlessly up and down his sides.

_The sly devil_ , Enjolras curses in his head, as he succumbs to this one weakness only Grantaire knows he has, and jumps involuntarily in his seat. It's just as Grantaire had planned, no doubt, and he triumphantly tugs Enjolras's trousers and pants down to where he wants them.

If Enjolras were not already extremely aware of having his cock exposed in a well-lit room populated by at least twenty young men of sound intellect and discerning minds, Grantaire gives it a few harsh strokes with his hand, leans forward and runs the flat of his tongue over it.

The half-sigh, half-moan has half-escaped his lips, when he claps a hand over his mouth in horror.

"Enjolras, you aren't well," says Combeferre quietly. "Go home; rest."

"It is n-nothing," he says, valiantly straightening in his seat even as Grantaire ducks his head to suck lightly at his balls.

Jehan shakes his head, and leans forward in concern. "No, no, Combeferre's right," he says. "Really, Enjolras, you do seem rather—"

Enjolras waves him aside. "Saturday," he announces, "The university is c-closed, and after noon the factory—ah… factory workers will be f-free, too."

Fisting the base of his cock, Grantaire dips his tongue into the slit and swirls his tongue lazily around the head. Before he knows it, Enjolras finds his fingers tangling in his hair, bringing him closer and closer in.

Combeferre clears his throat.

"Ah…ah, where was I?" Enjolras hastens to say. "We are going to need all the educated minds we can g- _god_ , gather… To speak to the people there. Messengers, we'll need those too… g-good ones, to spread the word; and flags, and leaflets, and s-s…"

"Smelling salts?" offers Joly.

Grantaire chuckles softly around Enjolras's member, and the vibration of it brings him suddenly very close to the edge. Except at that moment, Grantaire pulls away completely.

A part of Enjolras wants to scream in protest. Categorically disowning that part of him from any further say in the affairs of his head, Enjolras proceeds with his speech.

"Well, my friends, I believe General Lamarque's house might be a proper place to meet. If anyone would like to obj—"

That is when Grantaire finishes exhaling slowly over the skin of his cock and jerks forward to take all of him in his mouth. He's had enough practice to know how deep he needs to take him, but to Enjolras, the moist heat of his mouth and his clever tongue seem more overwhelming every time.

He presses his lips together so hard his teeth dig into them nearly deep enough to draw blood.

Grantaire bobs his head up and down so fast that he's almost a blur, and it's a wonder his head doesn't knock the very top of the table off. Enjolras doesn't realise the way his hips are rising rhythmically to meet Grantaire's mouth, till Bossuet says, "Now I'm no doctor, but those do look mightily like convulsions," and Joly appears to be near tears.

But he is too far gone to think anymore, so he tears his eyes away from their faces and looks straight ahead instead. This is where the old map of France happens to be, and it is both a wonderful and terrible thing. Wonderful, because it provides him the most convenient excuse to be staring dazedly in one direction (he's been known to do that, at this very map); and terrible, because of the way it seems to watch him now as he veers closer and closer towards the edge, and then with a drawn-out gasp climaxes at last into Grantaire's waiting mouth.

"Enjolras," Combeferre's cautious words penetrate through to him god knows how much later. The stars in his vision have begun slowly to clear, and he feels oddly reckless—who wouldn't feel like they could do just about anything, after what had just happened?

But he's also far too spent and boneless to even move, so he settles for a soft sigh.

Combeferre raises an eyebrow and studies him for a moment. Seeming to come to a decision, he addresses the room at large. "General Lamarque's house on Saturday, then; I trust no one has any objections?"

By now, everyone looks fairly puzzled at the evening's turn of events (with the exception of Joly, who looks frankly terrified), but they all shake their heads.

Combeferre gets to his feet. "Well then, I'm off," he says, retrieving his coat and hat. At the top of the stairs, he looks around at Enjolras. "Easy, now," he says to him, before setting on his way. "I believe you've been staying up too long with your books of late, it's eating your head."

Enjolras considers correcting him; letting him know that it's fucking Grantaire on every surface he can manage it that has been keeping him up, and Grantaire's very existence that is eating at his head; but it seems to involve an awful lot of speaking, so he desists.

Instead, he watches with a sort of detached interest as the others follow Combeferre's lead, as had been that perceptive young man's intention, no doubt. They bid him goodbye, leaving bits of health advice—or a lot of it, when it was Joly's turn.

It's a slow thing, this business of good-natured farewell-taking among young men, but when it's over and they are quite alone, Grantaire emerges at last.

He looks like sin—mussed hair, rumpled clothes and still-moist lips, and when the tip of his tongue darts out to lick at them, something in Enjolras quite abruptly snaps.

"Was there anything you wanted to ask of me?" he asks, through gritted teeth.

Grantaire leans back against the table, making a great show of stretching his limbs with the cat-like grace that comes with being a trained gymnast. Then he grins. "Oh, I was just wondering where my bottle went!"

With a low growl from the back of his throat, Enjolras seizes him by the collar, spins him around and pins him to the wall.

"Good question," he breathes against his ear. "I'm about to give you the answer till it's leaking out of every pore of your body." He runs a hand very deliberately down his front. "Hope you're ready."

-:-

Toying with the flowers at the centre of their table, Jehan turns to Courfeyrac. It's still too early in the evening for dinner, and the Barrière de la Cunette is almost empty save the two of them.

"What do you suppose was wrong with Enjolras today?" he asks, fair brow creased in thought. "He did seem quite out of sorts, and Joly was recounting all manner of terrible maladies rampant at this time of the year."

"Was he, now?" answers Courfeyrac absently, tucking a lock of Jehan's flaxen hair behind his ear. "You worry too much."

"Worry?" says Jehan. "He's our friend, Courf. I know you left before the worst of it, but that's really no excuse to joke about… oh, I've been meaning to ask you, you'd been smiling to yourself and speaking most carelessly to him while you were there, is there something going on that I don't know about?"

Courfeyrac looks away reluctantly from the charming little pout Jehan's lips have formed into, and sighs. "Maybe I should show you," he says after a moment, eyes widening.

"Show me? Whatever do you—"

"I've done my good deed for the day," reasons Courfeyrac out loud to himself, "Lugging Grantaire's drunken old arse out of the goodwill of my own pure heart, to a place where he would wake up to the finest prize you could give him. Why can't I receive a little something in return too? That's right, I deserve it."

"What are you talking about?" asks Jehan, quite bewildered. "Grantaire? I did find it odd he wasn't at the meeting today, but what was that about a prize?"

"Patience, patience," whispers Courfeyrac, "I'm going to show you in a moment, just like I promised." He nips gently at his ear. "Hope you're ready."

And with these cryptic words, he casts one look around the near-empty restaurant, lifts up the side of the tablecloth, and slides underneath.


End file.
